"Deep Scan" is it only for deleted files or also non-deleted?

[hunter2990]

I'm trying to recover some non-deleted information on a 500 GB reformatted external hard drive (about 200 GB of files). When the regular scan finishes it says that "x" amount of files have been ignored (And I don't know which) so I went "deep scan", but the problem is that there is not enough space on my PC to finish it, and that's the reason of my question: Does it worth it that I clear some space on my PC so I can run the deep scan or the deep scan it's only for deleted files? (Remember I'm just trying to recover non-deleted).

Thanks

[Augeas]

A Normal scan will read file names and cluster addresses from the MFT (assuming NTFS). A deep scan will also read the MFT, but will then scan the clusters sequentially looking for known file signatures, i.e. if this cluster starts with a GIF8 then it is a gif picture file.

 

After a disk has been formatted the previous info in the MFT has been lost. A scan with Scan for Non-Deleted Files checked will attempt to read the remnants of the old MFT. This should be your first action as it is fast and returns full file info.

 

If the required files haven't been found try a deep scan. A deep scan has limitations: it can only find the first extent of a fragmented file, it doesn't find txt or bat files as they have no signature, and it doesn't find file or folder names, as they are not held in the file data.